You Understand What Story Is

In many rooms (mostly rooms,
Maybe under a few trees)
At every moment these lines
Have been left composed like this,

For far more moments before,
And for perhaps a long time
After these lines have vanished,
Storytellers are working,

Will have been working, to tell
The stories they need to tell
To make their livings, to sell
Well, to satisfy themselves.

And there are people waiting,
Will have been people waiting,
People always preparing
For stories beyond themselves.

Can you sense the rooms humming,
Keyboards clicking, pens scritching,
Throats clearing, fingers tapping
As stories enter your world?

What an extraordinary
Excrescence, like nest building
By wasps using their own spit,
Like webs spun from abdomens—

What specialized signaling
To make sense of the cosmos,
Senseless itself, unless you
Understand what story is.